Hey guys- Trying to get my posts up as a new member so figured I would answer some questions here, especially considering it's rare to chat with other advantage players.

Self taught card counter
Played for a year and a half part time
Made 50k
Haven't played in 2-3 years because I'd rather spend time working/family/hobbies

AMA if you like, will try to give as honest, transparent answers as I can.

I'm just curious. I saw you shuffling your checks with your right hand. Can you do that with both hands?

This forum is kind of dead so might as well try to make it more interesting.

How many times have you been backed off, and were any of them especially interesting in any way?

Have you attempted any of the more advanced techniques and have you had success with them?

What counting system do you use?

Is a hotdog a sandwich?

What was your biggest downswing?

What’s the funniest thing you’ve seen a ploppy do?

Just any good stories in general?

when using an ace side count with hi-lo in double deck are there any other applications aside from doubling 11 and taking insurance? if so, what are they? please illustrate your answer with examples.


how does a double deck game with LS, DAS, D9-11 contrast with a standard DAS, DA2, no surrender game, assuming penetration is the same? is your advantage at higher true counts higher or lower or the same with the D9 LS game?


you are playing heads up at a casino, in a very good game, but there is only one blackjack table open at the casino. there are other casinos in the city. how negative does the count have to get and at what deck penetration before you quit, or do you play all?


how does the addition of the ES10 rule impact the house edge of free bet blackjack?


I'm at a casino which doesn't allow you to both take insurance and surrender. I have 15 v A in a H17 multi deck game, and the true count is +5. Should I take insurance, or chance it and then surrender?

What does self taught mean in this context?

Why is that so special that it bears mentioning?

Backed off about 15-20 times. Been flat bet a couple times and had the pit boss cut the deck in half a couple times as well. Two most interesting were at a small Indian Casino I was backed off by two pit bosses, the head of security, a security guard, a police officer, a manager of player operations, and two other employees who were trying to take my photo/ask me personal info and write down answers. It was a bit much and ironically the first time I ever got backed off. The second, was in Vegas, I was playing at a table and I believe there were one or two other card counters there. We got a few hot decks and each time the pit boss would come over and yell "CUT IT IN HALF" The dealer didn't really want to do it but this pitt boss just kept screaming "CUT IT IN HALF" so loud a bunch of the other tables were looking. It got to the point where we didn't really care about the money, we just wanted to hear the pit boss loose it again.

Never attempted any advanced techniques besides some random side bet stuff.I was under the impression that learning a more advanced technique would only increase your +EV slightly and IMO wasn't worth the time investment or possible chance of not playing correctly. A little success.

Biggest downswing (rough estimates): 3,000 over an hour, 10,000 over 24 hours. Never anything larger than 10k in any amount of time.

I'll get back to you with some other stories. Maybe playing on drugs, playing with prostitutes, people falling asleep at the table and unable to wake up etc.

I'm guessing you already know most of these answers and If you don't you can just look at an index chart. I rarely, if ever, got into counting the aces or broke down my exact edge given the variable rule changes table to table (unless it was something obvious like 6:5 etc).

I would wong out at -3. But leaving the casino or not depends on a bunch of other factors, but I'd never sit if it was -3 or worse.

I learned from articles online. Technically nobody (or almost nobody) is self-taught, self-taught, but I was self taught in a sense that I didn't have an actual teacher.

FOrgot to mentin. Used hi-lo.

playing in a double deck game with the kings bounty side bet, the dealer exposes the bottom card of the deck. it's the king of spades. you cut ten cards from the bottom to hopefully bring the card out in the second round of play. playing two hands on the first round you use up 10 cards, plus the burn card, and still have not seen the king of spades. what is your optimal kelly bet on the kings bounty side bet for both of your next hands? what is your optimal kelly bet on your main hands? given an 80% confidence in receiving the king of spades on one of your two hands. Keep in mind there is a sign on the table stating the max aggregate payout for the sidebet is $10,000.

here are the payouts for the sidebet :

Pair of King of Spades with dealer blackjack pays 1000-to-1.
Pair of King of Spades without dealer blackjack pays 100-to-1.
Two suited Kings pays 30-to-1.
Two suited Queens, Jacks or Tens pays 20-to-1.
A suited total of 20 pays 9-to-1.
Two unsuited Kings pays 6-to-1.
An unsuited total of 20 pays 4-to-1.
Otherwise, the player loses the KB bet.

Again, I'm guessing you not only know the answer to this but I never played any of these side bets as a player. Perhaps I would of if this was my sole source of income and I have been playing for years/had a lot of time on my hands, but that was never my personal experience

If you bet the sidebets then you would be less suspect in "counting" cards. They'd just say, oh, another sucker bet player or something.

perhaps a dumb question:

with all the new automatic shufflers coming in, is there any utility at all in counting with those?

did you work in a team or as a group - would you be sneaky about it or just exploit the edge?

i have very limited experience doing this, in one casino in cambodia i got backed off and at another they offered me a free room because they were struggling and having a friendly guy at the table instead of an empty room was good for them even though they knew what i was doing

This is true and a play some card counters use for camouflage.

Not dumb questions at all:
Automatic shufflers are great for CC's because it's less time between chutes which equals more hands. Continuous shufflers are bad because it negates any edge you have as a CC, so you can't count at all if the table has a continuous shuffling machine.

I worked by myself but had a backer and somebody I split the bankroll with for the majority of my CC life. I used to know another counter I would see often and he would often times count a side bet and I would tail his action if we were at the same table.

At my local casino there is only one table that is hand-shuffled (6 decks), minimum bet is $25. All the rest are CSM's.
I know how to count but would there be any profit against this table?
ie: can a good cardcounter beat a six deck game and what would your maximum bet be and bankroll needed?

you haven't provided much information (rules, penetration, bankroll, rounds per hour) but in general six deck games are beatable.

exactly how much bankroll is required depends on how much of an hourly you want to make and of course what the rules penetration and game speed are.

And good bet spread.

Dealer standing on soft 17, double after split, late surrender, 3:2 BJ (of course), at least 4.5 decks dealt and > 8:1 spread would be good. Hard to find at low table min.

The site I play poker on doesn’t have rakeback, just tournament vouchers or ‘casino bonus funds’. I clicked ‘redeem bonus’ and didn’t know until after that I couldn’t withdraw the cash until I played 10x the amount in their casino. Anyways, I turned $400 into $2k being an idiot in roulette, and then switched to blackjack. From there I tried to meet the play through requirement. Here is my question:

What is the risk of ruin for a $2k bankroll, playing 3 hands at once at $25 each (so $75 per deal), sometimes doubling down, following basic strategy perfectly? I lost all of it in less than an hr and basically want to find comfort in the loss likely being the result of my strategy rather than the site being shady, bc I want to continue playing poker there without worrying about this.


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That loss would not be unusual at all betting at that level plus you aren’t playing with an advantage, bets are -EV.

This link might help with figuring right strategy for playing through with BJ

http://www.beatingbonuses.com/bjstrategy.php

Let's say you are playing double deck, and with 1 deck remaining your count is +2. Assume you are betting only one spot, DAS, late surrender, max 4 split hands, double on anything. No other prop bets.

How do you calculate your bet size? If you are using half kelly or similar then there first must be an assumption on what the full kelly fraction is. Since blackjack is not an even money proposition I'm interested in how players approach this.

Well, the most scientific method is to use a blackjack simulator like CVCX.


But we can use a crude method of dividing our bankroll into X number of max bets, and then working backwards. Let's say you have a $30,000 bankroll and want to use a 300 max bet bankroll, a fairly conservative approach. So your max bet would be $100.


You have described pretty good rules, so let's say we go with a 1-10 spread on the double deck game. Assume $10 minimum. Then we could bet something 1 at Tc 0 OR BELOW, 2 at TC +1, 4 at TC +2, 6 @ TC +3, 8 @ TC +4. and 10 @ TC +5.

This is referring of course to $10 units. So in this betting schedule for a TC of +2 we would bet 4 units.


Of course you can spread higher or play with fewer max bets depending on your risk tolerance and desired hourly and the heat profile of the casino. In general I recommend that the bigger your bankroll the more max bets you play with. It also depends on what count you are using. Here I am assuming hi-lo.

So kelly is quite simple, you bet your advantage. If you have a 1% advantage, you bet 1%. Since blackjack is not an even money game, you only bet 70% of your advantage, in order to account for the variance. So to bet half kelly you would bet 35% of your advantage. in order to determine your advantage at a given rule set you can use a blackjack simulator, but I'd estimate you have at least a 1.3% to 1.5% advantage in that situation (TC + 2 under the partial rule set you described) depending on whether or not the dealer hits soft seventeen.

So is the 70% number just a rule of thumb? I have never seen a formal calculation of the proper kelly fraction for blackjack + counts.

Risk of ruin? Yes Kelly I know. Blackjack Attack a good source. And has been mentioned the CV software provide good tools.